YOUR VIEW: Students should learn about the Holocaust

While Chris Powell’s columns usually contain some good insights into state government, his column of Monday May 14 missed the mark by a wide margin. In that column he callously equates requiring genocide studies in public schools with “trivia.”

He is apparently referring to SB452, recently enacted by the Connecticut General Assembly, mandating Holocaust and Genocide studies in the social studies curriculum.

He dishonors the memories of the millions upon millions who perished in the Holocaust and other atrocities such as the Armenian Genocide . Connecticut is home to many citizens of Jewish, Armenian , Greek and Assyrian lineage as well as other ethnic groups too numerous to mention whose families were victims of the Holocaust and genocides. Sadly, our recent history has witnessed other unthinkable genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda as well as other countries, including Syria today.

The testimony and legislator’s comments on the bill which Powell denigrates as “trivia” demonstrated that, unbelievably, many Americans today know little of these past atrocities. Even sadder, some dispute that they even happened!

Many have written that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Clearly, a genocide forgotten is a genocide continued.

Thumbs up to the Connecticut General Assembly for passing the bill mandating Holocaust and Genocide studies.